


Book of Tobit

by Varjo



Category: Abrahamic Religions, Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aliases, Alliances, Anachronistic, Arranged Marriage, Aziraphale is Asmodeus, Biblical setting, Celebrations, Crowley is Good With Kids (Good Omens), Crowley is Raphael, Curse Breaking, Demon Deals, Dogs, F/M, Fish, Fishing, Food-Lover Aziraphale (Good Omens), Horns, Implied/ Referenced violence, Medicine, Modern values, Nicknames, Ram-Imagery, Rewrite of an apocryphal story, Role Reversal, Rule-Abidingness, Sara will have no bullshit, Teenagers, and their innards, angels dance, demons don't, kind of, ruses, travelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:02:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28218156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Varjo/pseuds/Varjo
Summary: Young Tobias and acquaintance Asarja set out for Rages in Media to retrieve a sum of money the former's father, Tobit, deposited there. Stopping in Ekbatana, they encounter likewise young Sara, who appears to be plagued by a demon said to have killed seven men she had been married to on their wedding night. At least Asarja is determined to help; however, both he and the young woman are hiding something.A Good-Omens-y remix of the apocryphal 'Book of Tobit', in which Crowley stands in for the youthful-energetic Archangel Raphael and Aziraphale for the luxuriously-pompous demon Asmodeus.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Tobias/ Sara
Comments: 12
Kudos: 15





	1. Chapter 1

“Yes, Dad.”

That was the sound of young Tobias listening to his tottering, blind and toothless, elderly father, his cheek resting on his palm, eyes glazed over, drifting in dreams. He had heard the bedridden man’s tirades often enough to be able to recite them in half-sleep, and also react at the appropriate moments.

Honour and venerate the Lord thy God.

“Yes, Dad.”

Be good and lenient and fair to your family.

“Yes, Dad.”

Now that I think about it, boy – give your mother and me good burials once we’re passed on. We have always been God-fearing, and things haven’t been easy, but we deserve that much.

“Yes, Dad.”

Always be truthful. Share your material wealth with those who are less fortunate than you are.

“Yes, Dad.”

Be loving and affectionate to your future wife. She is the one, after all, who will share your house and heart, bear and birth your children and care for you in old age.

“Yes, Dad.”

Speaking of wives… only take one from our community. It has always been so, and we have been blessed. Why break a winning tradition?

“Yes, Dad.” Tobias sighed.

Be a good father to your children, too. Provide for them, never be too distant. Never underestimate the importance of being a good family father.

“Yes, Dad.”

Be careful to always pay your farmhands on time. Be fair, but if you can afford, be generous.

“Yes, Dad.” He yawned.

Speaking of money, he just remembered these ten talents of silver he had lent, years, ah, maybe centuries ago to this man, Gabael, two towns over…

This made Tobias finally start out of his daydreams. There was… money? Tobit wasn’t necessary unwell-off, the farm kept the family fed alright, but ten talents of silver were not a small sum. And then, retrieving it would maybe result in a pretext for young Tobias to see a different part of the world, to not sit by his father’s bed every evening and listen to him going through his spiel…

“Ten…” he repeated, lifting his head from the cradle of his palm, suddenly wide awake, “ten talents… in Rages in Media, you say?”

Tobit stopped short and pulled a disgruntled face. Obviously he didn’t think the world of his son interrupting him while he tried to fulfil his paternal duties. “I may be blind, boy, and suffering from old age, but I don’t think I stuttered just now.”

“I’ll get it!” The enthusiasm in Tobias’ voice was palpable. “You trust in me, Dad – before you can say a prayer for my safe passage, I’ll be back with your money.”

Tobit grumbled something guttural while pulling a face; Tobias assumed his father tried his best to glower at him, but, being blind, his glance was directed some two, three hand breadths over his shoulder. “I could give you the waiver and send you there, I could I guess,” the old man grunted, stroking his beard, sounding as if he were deep in thought and not much liking what went through his head, “but, boy, how are you going to find your way? You’ve never been to Media in your life. You don’t know anyone there! You don’t know Gabael, however will you find him? And I… I won’t let you go alone and unprotected, not at your age. I mean, you are a man by law, so much I understand, and know, and acknowledge, but still… if something, anything, happens to you on your way… imagine what your mother will think…”

This made Tobias consider for a second or two – but then a smile spread on his face. “Don’t you worry, Pop,” he grinned, patting his father’s shoulder and standing up, “I know just the one to ask.”

Lately, a stranger had arrived in their town – a very peculiar kind of character, tall, kind of gaunt, with high cheekbones, wavy, occasionally a bit messy reddish hair, donning dark robes which he mostly used to obscure his face down to the base of his nose, and carrying a staff with a wood-carved serpent coiled around it (strange: if one looked at the carved serpent closely enough, there was one spot at which it seemed like the artist had made it to have slender little wings, folded to its scaly back). He always walked barefoot and still never seemed to have dirty, cut or burned feet. 

Usually, the township was not very accepting of strangers – one kept to oneself, after all – but this one was a notable exception. It was not only the fact that he was pure sunshine, always went about humming a tune and smiling at everybody, lending a hand (or both) wherever a hand was needed. More pertinent, probably, was the fact that he seemed to be able to cure every ailment, of human as well as of beast or – most oddly – of plants, and did so copiously while advising the people around how to treat themselves, their wives and children, and their cattle to avoid them falling ill in the first place. Children were especially drawn to him, and he welcomed them with open arms, teaching them scripture, songs, and obedience and admiration for their elders. He never asked for something in return, either, apart from maybe a place to rest his legs for a day or two and a bowl of water to clean himself off, and he was known by some families to enthusiastically lead them in prayer. Agam from four houses over claimed they had never had such an intense experience while saying their prayers at the dinner table.

As everyone else, Tobias, though he had seen the wanderer only from afar until now, was very impressed with the very idea of him and his knowledgeability. One who seemed so widely travelled and learned as he – he could certainly help the boy on his way to Rages?

Now he just had to find him…

As Tobias, fleet-footed, left his father’s house, little Ziv lifted from his resting place, wagging his tail. Ziv, about knee-high and sand-coloured, with raggedy fur and floppy ears, was a retired shepherding dog – his pups had taken up his post by now, and the old dog merely dozed in the sun most of the time. He had taken a pronounced liking to the young son of the family and mostly followed Tobias wherever he went. “Come along, Ziv!” he just had to shout, and the dog would be at his heels.

As he was today.

“Good boy, Ziv,” Tobias said as the animal had reached his side, knelt down and put a hand on the dog’s back, “we’re going into town today to find Asarja – you know, the new one. Can you help me find him, do you think?”

Ziv barked.

“Thought so. Good boy,” Tobias said, grinning, before getting up and dusting off his knees, “then go! Search! We must find Asarja quick!”

The retired shepherder charged forward, tongue lolling out of his mouth. Tobias was aware that the dog would not help in sniffing the newcomer out, that he merely yapped along in front of him without a clue where he was going, but he enjoyed the animal’s presence, and that was that.

What actually helped the boy turn up the stranger were a couple of passers-by who he asked about Asarja and who happened to know he was over at Yochanan’s, checking on an orchard of olive trees that had yielded diminishing returns in the past years. Tobias thanked the villagers demurely, accepted their request he tell Asarja Tovah and Orna sent their love, and ran off, whistling and shouting for little Ziv to stay by his side.

Indeed, as he came into view, Asarja tended to an olive tree that showed some dry spots of bark and the one or the other gnarly, dead branch. Yochanan, looking all business-like, stood beside and nodded perpetually while the red-haired stranger spoke and pointed and gestured with one fine-boned, dextrous hand; and was this Yochanan’s youngest daughter, Liorit, piggybacking on him, his long hair over her shoulders like a shawl, and being stabilized by the other hand? 

Asarja was the first one to take note of the new arrival; he smiled at Tobias as if he knew he’d been sought out, but pleaded with him to give him two more minutes, just to finish what he had started here.

“Stay, Ziv,” Tobias ordered the dog, who obeyed, sitting down next to his master’s feet, and boy and dog waited the consultation out from a safe distance, impatiently, albeit trying to conceal it. Asarja ended the counsel, refused to accept Yochanan’s payment, set Liorit down and poked her nose, which left the four-year-old giggling, before he turned, dusting off his hands, towards Tobias.

“Hello. Tobias, am I right?” the gentle man greeted with a smile, kneeling to ruffle Ziv’s fur, “I believe you came to search me.”

“How would you have known?” Tobias asked. It was most natural to ask this, he knew; however, Tobias, oddly, found himself thinking it was a stupid question. Of course he would have known… though why or how he could not fathom.

The stranger shrugged. Ziv, grumbling contentedly, pushed his snout against Asarja’s broad hands. “Sometimes, I just do. Nothing you must be concerned with. How may I help?”

Tobias took a deep breath before he started getting to the point. Oh, and delivering the ladies’ greetings which Asarja accepted with a kind beam. “I come to ask you… a favour, I guess. Do you happen to know a city named Rages? My father, you see, has some money deposited there, with a friend called Gabael, and I, he wants me to go there and collect it, but he wouldn’t want me to go there alone and unguided. Seems he doesn’t trust his son with that, or whatever. Dad can pay, so…”

“Indeed I know Gabael himself,” the stranger answered thoughtfully, rising again to his full height. “I was fortunate enough to be guest at his dinner table once.”

“Perfect! Then you can…”

“I didn’t say I would.”

Tobias’ heart sank.

“But I think I will.” Asarja’s smile was wan, but noticeable, and Tobias felt only a little made fun of. “A little voyaging will do my old bones a world of good.”

“Great!” the boy exclaimed, and Ziv barked as if in agreement, “Then come along, Lord, and Dad can outfit us with anything we need, so we can…”

“Oh, such haste.” Asarja sounded amused, but he went to Tobias’ side without a further question. “You should show your father a little more respect, young Tobias – a little more of the un-needed respect you just bestowed on me. No reason to call me Lord, Asarja is completely fine.”

The boy merely ground his teeth and ruffled his hair, all the while walking. It wasn’t that he didn’t respect Tobit – just that occasionally, he respected himself and his time too, and should he really and truly be at fault for that?

Neither he nor his companion-to-be made any further comment on their way back to the boy’s home; as they re-arrived, his mother Hanna was by her husband’s side, describing minutely, in every last detail, the appearance and expression of the stranger their son had brought to the house. Tobias mused he’d sink into the floor of embarrassment; Asarja, however, was a picture of courteousness and patience and answered every littlest badgering question Tobias’ parents could think of – especially, for some obtuse reason, of which family he was.

“Dad!” Tobias moaned. “Do you have to know the exact parentage of everyone I ever spoke to? We’re just going to travel a bit. I’m not going to marry him!”

“Scandalous! That you would even imply it!” Tobit bellowed. Hanna just gasped, but Tobias wasn’t deigning to pay them much mind now.

Asarja himself? Something twitched in his mouth’s corners, but he made no sound.

Tobias sounded a little deflated as he added, “What does his family really matter…?”

“It does, as you very well know!” Hanna took her husband’s side, fervently. “You and he, you will be travelling together for days, maybe even weeks. How do you expect us to let you just wander off with a stranger – someone we know absolutely nothing about? However can we entrust our only son to him him without knowing these things?”

Tobias opened his mouth to formulate an exasperated answer, but Asarja silenced him with a lifted hand. “Your parents are right, Tobias,” he admonished the boy, “and I will gladly answer their questions. As for my heritage – yes, I happen to be of one and the same blood as you.”

That seemed to placate the elders – after another offer of payment, which Asarja gently, but staunchly refused, and a little bit of stocking up, the boy and his travel companion finally were able to set out for Rages in Media.


	2. Chapter 2

“… and then, and then, he went red as the setting sun and just turned and never spoke of it again!”

Tobias and Asarja, resting at sunset near the river Tigris, burst in two-voiced laughter. Asarja, having grown up, as per his words, between an older brother and two sisters, one older, one younger, (“And one other brother, the oldest of us all, but he went away and we don’t speak of him anymore”) gloried in telling the tales of his childhood, of how he, time after time, had managed to overtake his siblings, the elder as well as the younger – though he admitted to feeling fiercely protective of little sister, a notion which she herself thoroughly resented. “They’re not bad people, all in all,” he had admitted to Tobias earlier on, “and I have my weak spots for all of them, but, you know, brother dear thinks too much of himself, older sis has a temper, younger sis looks up a bit too much to them… I’m just mostly in the middle, picking up the pieces. And they paint me as the naïve, gullible one!”

It wasn’t always an easy existence, but Asarja seemed to make do. And occasionally, it seemed to be rewarding, too, as judged by the story he had just concluded, involving his elder brother, himself and two villagers who hadn’t been of one mind concerning the price of a sacrificial bird. Asarja’s brother had obviously wanted to take this all the way up, because ‘rules needed to be followed’ and this was ‘a matter of utmost importance,’ but Asarja had nudged him to just let the merchant and the worshipper discuss it among themselves. Additionally, they had placed a bet on the outcome of the thing – if the two reconciled and reached an agreement on their own, Asarja would have won, and his brother would have to forego his eldest-son-rights for a month. Conversely, if the quarrellers wouldn’t find middle ground and need their counselling, thereby proving the brother right, Asarja had agreed he would wash his brother’s feet every evening for a month.

Needless to say no feet were washed as a result of this wager. Gavrel had kept his end of the bargain, not without denouncing the whole thing as ‘petty’ and ‘insulting’ and ‘beneath him’ in the process.

“Really, Gavrel believes everybody and their dog are lost without him doing their thinking for them,” Asarja drowsily closed his story, and his eyes.

The stranger lay by the bank of the river, on his back, arms crossed behind his head, lazily dangling the toes of one foot in the air. Tobias glanced at him sideways; it was definitely entertaining to travel with this man by his side. It seemed his life and head were full of stories, and Tobias had to admit he never had experienced an evening prayer as gripping and vivid as the one Asarja had led him in after they had chosen their resting spot. There definitely was something about him. 

Tobias had offered to hunt them a rabbit or produce some of the bread Hanna had packed him after the prayer, but Asarja had told him to wait with an indecipherable smile. “We won’t want for anything,” he had told the boy upon bustling away to gather firewood, “there is no need to hunt. Everything we need will come our way, in time.”

In time… It should damn well soon be time. Tobias’ stomach was rumbling. Asarja’s story had distracted him while he had told it, but now that his companion was silent again, the feeling was back and stronger than ever. His mouth was parched. If he wouldn’t get any food soon, he feared his stomach would cramp down on itself.

He sat at the river’s bank, his feet up to the ankles in the cold, gentle water; Ziv, having insisted on accompanying the travellers, lay between them in the grass, only a few steps away from a small campfire, and gnawed at a twig he had picked up underway.

“He must be hard to get along with,” the boy ventured.

Asarja gave a nondescript sound. “Occasionally,” he admitted without opening his eyes, “but he’s my brother and I honour that. Time after time I would really love to tell him to just bite down on his tongue and choke on the blood, let me tell you that… but I also know he means well, and so…” His voice trailed off, and Tobias interpreted this as him closing the subject, maybe even the conversation.

He himself, turning his face toward the rapidly darkening night sky, licked his lips and tried to not start whining. There was no food… there didn’t seem to be any more stories. What was a young man to keep going through the night on…

Suddenly, there was movement in the water next to his toes – but before he could lower his glance to check, whatever it was had already dug into his toe. Painfully.

**_“OW!”_ **

Asarja jerked upwards as Tobias jumped back – and he laughed once again, laughed uproariously, as the boy hopped away from the riverbank, a big, yellowish-brown-black fish hanging at his toe. Tobias for himself didn’t find this funny at all – the animal had bitten down with force, was drawing blood, flopped about helplessly, and it – refused – to let go!

“Let go _let go LET GO LETGO_!” the boy roared as he theatrically jerked his foot around, hopping on the other one – and somewhere between this, Asarja’s laughing and Ziv’s irritated twitching of tail and ears, the fish finally conceded, the bite loosened, and it slumped into the sand with comically open mouth and glazed-over eyes.

“Here’s what I told you,” Asarja said chipper as he stood up and indicated the fish, “our Lord and Creator will provide for us.”

“Does He now?” Tobias snapped. “He has a weird way of going about it, then.”

Asarja snickered. “You have no idea, Tobias.”

The boy replied to that with a brow twitching upward, but no words. It was not necessary to say anything more, as his companion knelt beside him and carefully picked the dead fish up. “Yes, wonderful,” the stranger muttered to himself, brushing sand off the scales, “we’ll feast nicely upon this. Just be sure,” he turned toward Tobias, who stared at him as if he mused his newfound friend had lost his mind somewhere along the way, “you keep the heart and gall bladder aside for later when you disembowel it. We might need those along the way.”

Tobias scoffed. “Something else, great Lord of Know-it-all?”

Asarja shook his head as if he had not even heard the snideness. “No, nothing else. Just the heart and the gall…”

Tobias finally dropped his stand-offishness, going a little limp in the process. “Either, my friend, you are utterly insane, or you know something,” he grumbled, sounding rather disoriented and sad.

Asarja shrugged. “Why not both?” he asked, evenly.

Tobias preferred to not follow this up any further; he merely did as Asarja had asked him, and they had a rich and quiet feast of roast fish next to the warm, crackling fire. The stranger just as much as nibbled at his part of the fish and gave most of it to happily chewing Ziv, but Tobias chose not to make any comment on it. 

He, however, took it upon himself to ponder his travel companion’s unfolding weirdness a bit more after they had lain down to sleep, Ziv’s warm, furry shape snuggled up to his side. But finally, the tiringness of the long journey got the best of him, and Tobias slipped into warm, comforting sleep.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------

“We’ll soon reach the township of Ekbatana,” Asarja, his serpent staff sinking into the sandy ground beside him in time with his steps, pointed out somewhere toward noon of the next day. Indeed, if Tobias squinted against the blinding sun, he could see an assortment of rough-hewn buildings in the immediate distance. “I think we should rest there a bit – your relatives live here, a man named Raguel, his wife Edna and their daughter Sara. They certainly will take us in for a night or two.”

Tobias side-eyed his companion suspiciously. “That really all?” he asked crankily, “After what happened yesterday, I really wonder about you and what you say.”

Asarja merely smirked. “The ways of the Lord, young friend, are not for us to know.”

Tobias rolled his eyes and sighed in exasperation – but he had to concede his companion was right in what vague little statement he had made, and chose not to push him any further for information he likely wouldn’t impart. 

At first, this appeared to have been the best course of action. Raguel and Edna took them in graciously upon hearing who Tobias was and offered a full lunch. They seemed worried, though, so Tobias heartened himself and asked what might upset them so.

“It’s about Sara, dear cousin,” Edna explained with a sigh, reaching for her husband’s hand, “my – our daughter, you see. She is… God knows, she is a beautiful, strong young woman of the right age to be married, headstrong and determined. Never shied away from a good, honest day of work, that girl. She would grace every man at whose side she would appear, every house she would be tending to, but… we fear there might be a curse about her. We have tried for close to a year giving her away to various worthy men, seven in all, but none of them… none survived the wedding night.”

“That sounds awful!” Tobias had ejected, compassionately, and Raguel had merely nodded. 

“We fear there is a demon keeping his hand over her, preventing her from finding happiness in marriage on this earth. God knows the poor girl must be utterly distraught… bless her, so strong and resolute, you couldn’t even tell how haunted she is, she lets nobody see her suffering…”

“Your child’s fate saddens me greatly,” Asarja, sounding gentle, hopped into the conversation, “pray tell… where might one find her at this time of the day? I would like to see whether there’s anything that might be done for her.”

“Done for her?” Raguel sounded grim as he spoke for the first time. “Nothing may be done for her, good friend. If a demon, and one as powerful as that one, has lain claim on her, what is a human supposed to do? Nothing short of an angel of the Lord might release her from her pain.”

“I know.” Asarja didn’t appear thrown; Tobias side-eyed him once more, wondering whether he was stupid or insane or just utterly fearless. Hadn’t he heard the man? A powerful demon… he would likely tear Asarja limb from limb if he merely went close enough. Demonic possession was not a laughing matter. “Still, I pity your sweet daughter. Maybe there is something I, who know my way around much of earthly medicine, can do to ease her plight.”

“You don’t understand,” Edna said, shaking her head. “Though she doesn’t show it, Sara’s mind is torn and plagued by what she had to live through. I wouldn’t… for my dear daughter’s sanity, I wouldn’t have her live through this ordeal anymore. Don’t make her hope, dear strange friend… I fear her mind won’t cope with a hope crushed.”

Tobias’ lips went dry. He had to understand that, hadn’t he? He had…

“I do understand perfectly well,” Asarja said calmly, “and I believe everyone will only profit of me, and Tobias here, seeing her. Now, if you would kindly lead the way…”


	3. Chapter 3

Now that had gone fine up until now – Archangel Raphael were almost ready to pat himself on the back, were this not, for one, a display of Pride and, for the other, premature. He hadn’t seen the demon yet, assessed him, gauged his power level. He was confident, yes, but… _let’s not get ahead of ourselves_. He wasn’t half the airhead Gabriel, Michael and Uriel seemed to see in him. 

And the boy by his side… he was a fine boy. Perceptive, a little aloof, but fundamentally a sweet young man. He thought he could join him with that young lady in good conscience.

As Tobias and Raphael went into the back room (the room in which, they were told, the grieving many-times-widow had drawn back to cry it out) a view presented itself to them that was… not exactly what they had expected. Raphael especially stopped short. “That is… unusual,” he muttered to himself, loud enough that it carried to the occupants of the room. Loud enough also that Tobias shot him a short, doubtful glance.

Sara was in here, indeed. But she didn’t look sad – she didn’t look bent by insurmountable grief. At least, her mouth formed a smile and her eyes were lively, almost teasing as she turned her head around and locked eyes with Tobias. (Was Raphael imagining this or was there something slightly flirtatious in her glance?) _Hello there_ , her expression said. _Now look at you, all young and sprightly and vigorous. Who might you be, now?_

The dog at Tobias’ feet gave a little, uncertain whimper. Sara, as she shifted her glance downward, smiled even brighter and bent down to the floor, a piece of meat in her hand, to lure the animal close.

But Sara wasn’t alone. Opposite her, at a table decked with jugs of wine and a plate of lush and appetizing fruit, bread and meat, sat a fully-fledged demon. A demon, decked in golden tones and an elaborate, delicately folded robe, speaking of great wealth, if also great lack of taste and restraint, with fluffy, woolly whitish-blond hair and curved horns, growing out of his forehead and curling beside his temples. The demon made Raphael feel self-conscious about his bare, dusty feet, his hair which he wore long, open and mostly untended-to and his simple, untidy robes. He made him feel run-down, unsightly and shamefully unkempt. That demon was dressed and preened to a t, a little flamboyant and a little overboard with the jewellery, but definitely proper.

Was this Asmodeus? The demon who, according to her parents, let alone Raphael’s siblings and Heaven’s records, plagued poor unfortunate Sara with death and widowhood?

“You might call it that, I concede,” the dapper demon answered with a grin, popping a grape into his mouth. “I, for my part, have never heard of any two gentlemen intruding unannounced upon a lady.” And her house guest, his smirk added, but the Archangel neglected it.

Raphael gestured towards the human-demon society, trying to maintain an air of superiority. He neglected the fact that Tobias by his side seemed to eagerly reciprocate Sara’s inquisitive glances, to nudge his little four-legged companion to accept the girl’s hospitality. “I mean… this.”

“Oh yes.” The demon rose from his seat and sauntered over; a cup dangled from his fingers at a dangerous angle. Raphael noticed that one of his legs was stiff; he limped heavily with it, was able to move along, but only laboriously so. Maybe painfully? So that was probably what the cane was for that leant at the table by his side. “I was told you angels are too nose-up-in-the-clouds to partake of these,” he sniffed the cup with mock enjoyment, “material goods, and pleasures. Hmmm… let me tell you, you don’t even know what you’re missing out on. How is it now, lord angel? Won’t you give it a try?”

With which he extended his arm, holding the cup, to the intruder.

“Shhhhhshshsh!” Raphael hushed his interlocutor up who gingerly lifted a brow upon this, “I am… my companion, he doesn’t necessarily know…” He cast a nervous glance aside, but Tobias, his human charge, was no longer there. The dog, it seemed, had finally got the hint and, yapping, hopped over to Sara, licking her hand as it took the scrap of cured meat she was offering. Sara presently cooed at the little thing, fluffing and ruffling it, and Tobias had made over to her, knelt beside his dog and greeted her, kindly, warmly.

“Apart from that, I’m here on a job. Can’t drink while I’m…”

The stranger cocked his head sideways with a pronounced mean smile. “Can you not, now,” he whispered, and Archangel Raphael shuddered at the implications.

Tobias’ distance gave Raphael some freedom of expression, and the demon’s unabashed scandalousness made him revert to his angelic ways; the proper ways of a supernatural being to act. He straightened and steeled himself before flipping a strand of hair out of his face and turning back to the demon. “No,” he said firmly, “That’s the rules, you see.”

Oddly, the demon indeed seemed to see; he nodded in understanding, shifted his weight back on his heels and put the cup to his own lips. “We must honour the rules,” he added sombrely, which gave Raphael the itch to bend them, just a bit, and snatch the wine away from the demon’s plump hand to sample it. Maybe sit at the table and try a bit of the meat? Or a pomegranate, maybe?

But he mustn’t be led astray. He had to remain… virtuous. To do his job. He wouldn’t give his Archangel brethren the satisfaction to know that he’d folded halfway through his first real assignment.

“Asmodeus, I presume?” the Archangel asked by way of resistance, his voice hushed and small, leaning back on his heels.

“The one and only,” the demon answered, now standing inches away from his interlocutor and smelling – terrific while savouring the wine himself, “and whose company am I fortunate enough to be sharing?” He eyed the angel, who reacted with an indefinite prickling below his midriff, inquisitively above his cup’s rim.

“Well, I am Archangel Raphael if you absolutely must know,” he introduced himself, “but to Tobias here I am Asarja – I would appreciate if you wouldn’t bust my cover just yet. And I regret to inform you you can’t have her anymore.”

He gestured toward Sara.

Asmodeus uttered an incredulous little “Oh?” sound.

“The Lord has ruled for her to be given in marriage to Tobias here.”

“And you are to be playing celestial matchmaker?” The mockery was evident. “That is quite a descent indeed. From the architect of space to a dealer of lonely hearts…”

“Will you be quiet,” Raphael snapped, but there was no sting, no imperiousness in his words. If he were completely honest, this demon threw him and intrigued him more than anything else; the demons he was used to were foul-smelling, loud, unabashed cads with zero sense of manners and carrying oneself, but this one here seemed different. Unsoiled, for one. Poised. Almost gentleman… well, gentlebeing-like. Gentledemon-like? Was there such a thing? And then his insistence to observe the rules.

To imagine what Gabriel, or Michael, would have to say about such a thought…

“You are quite aware that the last seven men who tried this very thing are now worm food,” Asmodeus said as if in passing, lowering his cup as if to show he meant business now. The thing he enjoyed – his wine – was being distanced.

“And there won’t be any further.” Raphael heard himself that severity didn’t suit his voice. Still, he tried his dam- well, blessedest to sell it. “Tobias and Sara are destined to be wedded, and thus it will be, by the order of…”

Asmodeus interrupted him with no more than a waving hand gesture. “You already said that. I haven’t forgotten. Now, how exactly do you propose to bring this about?”

“I would be remiss,” Raphael shot back, hardly noticing himself how he tried to match the demon’s snotty (oh, sorry, _sophisticated_ ) tone and word choice, “if I were to tell you right now, weren’t I?”

Asmodeus smiled, showing teeth. “A demon can try.”

“You’re not trying to intimidate me, are you?” Raphael hated the mere thought of getting into a fight – he wasn’t one who wounded anyone, that honour went to Michael, thankyouverymuch. He had always rather been invested in mending wounds and cuts, and to think this mission here could result in him breaking that tradition…

The demon smirked. “That depends, lord angel. Does it work?”

“No.” Raphael pulled a face that, he hoped, displayed staunchness and unmovingness. “You won’t catch me being afraid of any demonic… person.” He had wanted to curse, but hadn’t quite brought it out. Maybe there was something to what Michael, Gabriel and Uriel said, that he was simply too nice.

“I’m not simply any demonic person.” Pride crept into Asmodeus’ voice. “I am Asmodeus, king of Hell, Lord of earthly pleasures. Overseer of Hell’s gambling houses. I think nobody would think ill of you having at least a tick of fear of me.”

Raphael shook his head (his curls flew) trying to get himself back on course. “Enough with the chitchat,” he tried for an imperious air, “I came with a mission, and I am not going to leave it undone, whichever part of Hell’s royalty might want to stop me. Sara and Tobias will be joined in marriage, and…”

“Will they?” Asmodeus’ diction was suddenly razor sharp. “And I presume this has been at large discussed with the both of them, and they will tell me, if I were to ask, that they aspire to no more, no less, than this which you name as your goal?”

“We can ask them right now!” Archangel Raphael’s voice grew high and thin as his irritation mounted. Such a foul, respectless… scoundrel!

“Then let’s!” Asmodeus seemed to lay his calm aside as well. There was a snide glow in his irises, and the brow between his horns was wrinkled. His voice was sharp and prickling. “They are right here, let’s approach them and ask…”

The supernaturals, as if on cue, turned their heads to the table where they had left their charges to find… nothing.

No Tobias.

No Sara.

Not even a Ziv…

Only the back door was slightly ajar.

None of them had heard any movement or footfalls…

Exchanging a mystified look, demon and angel followed their respective charges into the garden. There, they found the two young humans locked in an engaging chat and playing fetch with Ziv, who went along with more enthusiasm than a dog his age should rightfully be able to display. They seemed to get along quite swimmingly… Archangel Raphael felt his heart touched and lifted by this sight, and quietly praised the Lord for always knowing so succinctly which way to steer any person and any situation.

Now all he had to do was to sell the parents on the idea that these two youngsters needed to be joined in marriage sweet and soon…

“Now will you have a look at that,” Raphael muttered under his breath, crossing his arms and smiling fleetingly.

Asmodeus by his side merely watched in silence, leaning onto his cane (he must have picked that up on the way out; Raphael wondered distantly whether his healing powers could do something to ameliorate whatever made poor king Asmodeus limp) and occasionally twitching his lip a little. Why could the Archangel not fight the impression he was trying to gain, or keep hold of a smile? 

“Do they know of their luck?” the king finally asked, his voice rough and unpracticed.

Raphael flinched a bit, but remained steadfast. “Not exactly,” he admitted, lifting a hand to toy with a strand of his hair, “but…”

Asmodeus snorted derisively. “How very like you up there,” he grumbled, “drafting in anyone you think can be useful without as much as a by-your-leave.”

“It is the will of the…”

“Yes, the will of the Lord.” Asmodeus appeared cranky as he waved Raphael away. “I know as much, my feathered friend. Still, this all presents us with a series of problems.”

“Oh?” Raphael cast a fleeting sideways glance at his opponent. “The way I see it, it is all rather easy. Tobias and Sara will be married with the Lord’s approval, and you will have to either leave by your own free will or be driven out by me.” It should have come out much more aggressive than it ended up sounding. But for one, pugnacity wasn’t Raphael’s nature, and secondly… Asmodeus had proven to be so agreeable these last minutes. It would be a crying shame to alienate him again by any overstated display of antagonism. “They will be happy in marriage, if it eases…”

“Yes, yes, yes.” Asmodeus’ annoyance seemed to heighten with each word. “I _know_. I can _see_ that, Raphael. My disability is of a physical nature, but I am not blind, and I can see something developing there.”

“Would it matter to you?” Raphael asked incredulously, and Asmodeus’ tone unprecedentedly darkened as he clamped down on his walking stick’s handle.

“It would matter tremendously to me, blackbird. We went through this whole spiel with the sole purpose of Sara not having to be with someone who treats her like property, or a simple commodity, or an access point to her parents’ money and goods… therefore, yes, I would care. I would care more than you can imagine to not leave her in an abuser’s hands.”


	4. Chapter 4

“In that case,” Raphael said, trying to keep down the joy that was flooding him, trying not to encouragingly tap the dapper demon’s shoulder, “you can simply let her go, can’t you? Tobias is a nice boy, and you see they get along. He will respect Sara and treat her as his equal, I can guarantee for that.”

Asmodeus wrinkled his nose. “In an ideal world, songbird, I could. But this is not an ideal world, however much your lot insist upon it, and I am bound to Hell and the service of Satan, so this is where our problems begin.

Protocol requires me to fight you, and to try keeping her within my clutch if it may be called so, and to destroy her, and maybe you and her family and property too, if I can, if we were to be separated. Lord Beelzebub will be quite chagrined if I returned to Hell empty-handed or not under extreme duress from the opposition – meaning you – and I assure you, Hell does worse to their traitors than send strongly worded letters. I suppose you are under a similar bind of rules and regulations.”

“I am to drive you away and bind you as far as I am able to,” Raphael admitted. He didn’t really want to do it anymore, however, and there certainly was no need anymore, so his brain was already developing schemes and ruses to let him get away without necessarily doing any harm to anyone, demon or not. “I think it was Egypt where I was to chase you to and leave you in chains? Yes, Egypt, if my mind doesn’t deceive me. Michael and Gabriel were quite explicit about that.”

“Quite explicit,” Asmodeus echoed between clenched teeth.

Demon and angel stayed in silence for a while; Raphael, while keeping on devising schemes and plans, noticed he didn’t find the demon’s presence disconcerting at all. He was a bit too serious and stuck-up for his taste, but definitely bright and an interesting interlocutor.

“So, you see our predicament,” Asmodeus finally took up the thread again, gesturing with a finely manicured, plump hand. “I cannot leave even if I wanted to, not without doing harm to her. Hell will expect worse from me. The face loss will be irreparable, and you don’t want to know what happens if you lose standing in front of other demons. And you cannot just let me hang around – the Archangels _will_ know, and they _will_ punish that breach of protocol.”

“You could claim you were distracted,” Raphael ventured. “Wandered off to do your evil somewhere else as you grew bored of dear Sara and her suffering.”

Asmodeus’ brow twitched. “Which part of ‘I am not to let her go without having to, and without a serious fight’ didn’t you understand, fowl? Hell has me assigned to this case, to this person, I handed in quite gushing reports about the evil I’ve been doing to and around her, and you don’t want to imagine what will happen to me if I lose or drop it. These are the rules. The rules are in place for a reason. I can hardly just squander them.”

Raphael nodded, completely negating the demon’s harsh words. “I see, I see,” the Archangel muttered to himself, kneading his chin in thought, “but you – you are on the same page with me, as far as that we both want… want Tobias and Sara to be together, and be happy together?”

Asmodeus sounded pained as he answered, after a long, painstaking, pensive period of silence, “Picture me… on the same page with an angel.”

Raphael looked at him in utter, intense anticipation, and finally, Asmodeus gave in with a sigh, lowering his head and averting his face. “Fine, lord angel, I bite. What is it that is on your mind? I really hope for you that this is good.”

“So, then… what would you think about staging the whole thing?”

“Staging it?” The demon sounded incredulous, and his eyes were of different sizes as his glance fixed on Raphael again. “However would you do that?”

So Raphael explained.

\-------------------------------------------------------------

“Your parents told me, told us I mean, you were cursed.”

Sara smirked as the boy next to her – Tobias, he had introduced himself – gingerly plodded the subject. He didn’t really seem afraid, while also not overly keen to approach the subject; it seemed like something that, out of a safe distance, he could contemplate with calm and level-headedness. “Did they,” she asked, affecting pain and heartbrokenness.

Ziv came running back, snout wide open to carry the ball they threw for him, put it down dead center between them and yapped for it to be thrown again. Tobias crouched down, grabbed the ball and wistfully stroked his four-legged companion before following its wish. He was cute – both of them were very cute, but still…

“Very much so.”

Silence set in.

“Is it very awful?”

“I manage,” she answered curtly. “Worst is actually the things people say about me in the streets. It helps to have someone understanding and kind by my side.” Sara nodded behind her to where the boy’s two-legged companion stood next to Asmodeus, both watching them while whispering among themselves, both trying and failing to be inconspicuous. Sara couldn’t tell what, but something about her friend always managed to draw everyone’s eyes and attentions.

Tobias glanced up to her, incredulously. “What about the horns? Isn’t he… like…”

“He is caring and sweet is all that matters to me,” Sara purposefully kept this line of argument curt. “Besides, the horns are detachable, dummy. He says... he says so many people accuse him of being hell-spawn that he sooner or later took to leaning into it, just to shock people.”

A pause followed this.

Sara smacked her lips before she went on. “I suggest you don’t mention this to him, Tobias. He has had enough trouble and hardships in his life because he happens to be born with an immobile leg. More than one person has already accused him of being of the devil and driven him away with jeering and violence, and I wouldn’t like this to happen again here where I made him feel he has a friend.”

Tobias, who she had expected to flare up upon her defence of her friend, to puff himself up and insist that such a man was no-one to be around ever, surprised her by nodding in understanding and being reasonable as he got up and said, “Very well, I won’t. I’ll respect him much as I respect you, or anyone. But, is there something that might be done about it?”

“Done about what?” Sara asked, drawing back a bit and wrinkling her brow.

“About the curse, of course! I mean, it must be hard to live and walk around and all that knowing that whenever you care about someone, he’ll be dead by sunrise after you having made a bond.”

Sara was silent.

“My friend over here – Asarja’s his name – he knows quite a bit about… different sorts of remedies. Maybe we could ask him…”

“That won’t be necessary.” She sounded downright cold.

Now it was Tobias’ turn to be silent. Finally, Sara sighed and continued, “Thank you for your… concern. I just… I don’t want to hear about it anymore. It pains me so. It fills my days and nights, and I wish there were talk about something but marrying me off, something but that… demon plaguing me…“ She trailed off as she realized how tenderly Tobias’ care made her feel. Damnable boy… damnable cute little boy.

“And until then, you will live with…” Tobias started, cagily, and Sara snorted some thin laughter.

“It will be a great tool to find out who’s really serious about me.”

Tobias blinked at her, and Sara could tell he was trying to gauge how much sarcasm had gone into that last remark. As he obviously found he couldn’t he elegantly changed the subject and asked her whether she had ever had a pet of her own, alike to his Ziv, which she denied, which led him into telling stories about Ziv’s prime as a shepherding dog, that one time he and Tobias’ father Tobit had gone off alone to find a runaway trio of sheep and hadn’t returned for a day or two (Tobias himself had been a mere baby) or that time he had brought home a kind of shaggy-looking female, older than he, who, after that, had never left his side again and had borne three litters of pups before she had died – a loss that had left Ziv heartbroken for years.

Thus they sat in the grass, talking and gently stroking Ziv’s head, as Sara’s parents got them in for dinner. Over the course of their conversation, Sara had felt herself grow utterly fond of the boy – he was clever and perceptive, chatty and witty, and while he was big-mouthed, he never seemed to mean anyone any harm.

Asarja was already present at the dinner table, glancing at the youngsters noncommittally over his locked hands, but Asmodeus seemed to have vanished. Good for him… Sara’s parents couldn’t possibly know he was there.

“We have been thinking,” Raguel said mid-meal, and both his daughter and his young guest locked eyes with him in surprise, “Edna and me… since you, dear Tobias, are our and, therefore, also our lovely Sara’s relative, and you seem well-off and also well connected with her already, you actually do have a right on her hand in marriage.”

Sara thought she’d choke on her bread as she heard that.

“Therefore, we wanted to ask you…”

“Dad!” Sara chimed in, incredulously. “I’m here! Do I get a say in anything? Plus, you… think about the curse! You cannot just let him… and to think you want to put me through this again!”

“But think about your reputation, darling,” Edna said, trying to smooth the waters. “You must marry one day, and I think with Tobias here and this wonderful man by his side who has proven so crafty, this will be the best chance you will get in a long time. Or maybe ever. Tobias is not a bad catch.”

“I don’t dispute that!” Sara felt she was close to erupting in rage. Seven times! She had been through this whole ordeal seven times. How long would this have to go on? How often would they have to repeat this ordeal, over and over? “He might be as good a catch as he wants, but I…”

“You, my dear, will do what your father rules,” Raguel shot her down, and Sara viciously ground her teeth. She wanted to jump up and chew her father out as Tobias lifted his voice.

“I will do nothing that Sara didn’t approve of. If she’s agreed with it – if it’s something that she wants, I am not afraid of any curse or monster, and I will gladly chance taking her much revered hand in marriage. But if she has any misgivings about it, there’s no way I will touch her.”

Sara blinked at him, this time stumped for real. 

And Asarja, that smug git of a foreigner, why was he smiling so warmly at her? It made her feel uncomfortable, as if she were hugged by a man two heads bigger than her, with large, feathery arms.

Why feathery arms?

No use pondering that now…

“I…” she muttered. “I…”

“Now sit down first, my dear, what kind of impression are you making on our guests,” Edna said, “And you, Raguel, be quiet from now on, I told you we had to be gentler in breaking this to Sara. Darling,” she leant over the table, addressing her daughter and covering her hand with her own, “we want nothing but for you to be happy. And we saw you outside with him and you looked so harmonic, and we consulted with Asarja here who wholly encouraged us, so we thought…”

“So you thought you might just forfeit his life, and take another stab at my peace of mind,” Sara grumbled, knowing very well, like a nervous tic in the back of her head, this was fully in her control.

“Fear not,” Asarja finally spoke up, “for I have a plan to ensure your friend will not be harmed…”


	5. Chapter 5

Edna smiled cautiously as she sat next to her daughter on the bed, smoothed the covers around her and took her hand. Sara’s face was kept blank and expressionless through some effort. She had finally agreed to taking Tobias’ hand, more for the thought of having this kind, reassuring young man by her side for life than anything else, though it hadn’t erased the last of her qualms. The ceremony had been a rushed and awkward affair, she had hardly been able to follow what was happening, and neither, she was sure, had Tobias. Glancing at his face and seeing the same lostness, the same puzzledness, in the way he had attempted (and failed) to keep smiling, to keep appearing confident and on top of things, had comforted her a great deal.

She was going into this blind… but so was he.

But that was not the thing she worried about. Maybe she should still go through with stuff the way it had been the times before, but then, Tobias…

“I don’t think I need to tell you any more things now, do I?” Edna's smile appeared forced, but hopeful.

“No, Mom. We’ve been over this.”

“Seven times.”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Just, darling, don’t be afraid. Tobias seems to be a nice young man, and I believe he will treat you gently and kindly.”

“I’m sure, Mom.”

“And with Asarja’s craftiness, his protection in place, nothing should really happen to you.”

“Certainly, Mom.”

“Just… you also take care of him. They don’t like to admit it, but men are in many a way more dependent on us than they care to admit.”

Sara smiled thinly. “I know that much, Mom.”

Edna sighed, then was quiet for a while, smiling at her daughter. Her eyes were moist, and her grip around her daughter’s hand was warm and uncertain.

“Should I leave you alone now, darling?”

“I think it would be better, Mom. Thanks for everything.”

“It’s going to be better this time.”

“Let’s hope so.”

Edna visibly struggled for something more to say, some more encouragement and soothing, but then just patted her daughter’s hand and rose to amble out of the room.

Sara sat up a bit and adjusted her hair as her mother had turned her back.

The door had hardly thudded close as another voice rang from a corner of Sara’s room, “Is she gone?”

\---------------------------------------------------------

“All under control, Tobias? You feel prepared for your wedding night?”

“I don’t know, Asarja. I really don’t. Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“I don’t need to think so. I know it. Look how well Sara and you got along!”

“Yes, yes, I know, and I don’t say I wouldn’t have wanted to. That I… I mean, Sara’s amazing, and I’d be thrilled, in any other case, to have her as my wife. Just… I had planned something more for my life than to die tonight.”

“I told you I had a plan.”

“It’s not like I didn’t trust you, it’s just…”

“What?”

Tobias hugged himself and averted his glance. He couldn’t properly tell what exactly the matter was.

Asarja proved an example of patience. So much so it ticked his companion off a bit.

“Isn’t it all a bit too good to be true? Like – in a bedtime story? Travelling, meeting this fantastic but plagued girl on my way, and just so having someone with me who seems to have the means to alleviate her pain. Rescuing her. And… happily ever after. It can’t all be that easy. That nice.”

Asarja smirked. “The ways of the Lord…”

“Now you’re giving me that bull, too?”

Asarja laughed – heartily, but not debasingly. It was hard not to have confidence in the man who laughed like this, even in the direst situations. “Trust me, Tobias, I beg you, just this one more time. Have you ever suffered any hurt by trusting me?”

“Well, I _was_ bitten by a fish…”

Asarja cackled.

“What? I’m sure there’ll be a scar!”

Asarja guffawed.

Tobias pulled a face. “I get it. My pain’s a joke to you.”

Asarja only slowly recovered, waving one hand and wiping his forehead with the other, finally throwing his hair back and taking a big, hearty breath before speaking on. “That put aside, Tobias. That one… hilarious moment aside. Have I ever failed you?”

Tobias stayed silent.

“As I said. Good now, let’s prepare for tonight. That fish’s heart and gall bladder. You still have those?”

Tobias nodded guardedly.

“Perfect! So, what you do is the following…”

\---------------------------------------------------------

Asmodeus hadn’t sat on Sara’s bed, but on a chair besides. His face was wistful, but he still appeared to try his best to hide his real feelings from his accomplice.

“I don’t think I want him to die,” Sara whispered.

A smile tugged at Asmodeus’ mouth corners. He nibbled at a piece of bread between words. “I assumed as much, dear Sara. There seemed to be a spark between you.”

Sara was silent, biting her lower lip in cluelessness.

Asmodeus straightened up. “Very well. Then things will go exactly as planned. I will just ask you to… whatever happens this night, don’t you worry about me. It will be fine. _I_ will be fine.”

“If anyone hurts you, it will be me to hunt them down and take revenge.”

Asmodeus gave a bemused chuckle. “No, really. It’s been my pleasure having met, and worked with you, my dear, but it seems this is the time to move on.”

Sara nodded. “I think so, too. Thank you for everything. Should I wish you all the best?”

“Hardly. I don’t think a demon would survive being met with ‘all the best.’”

Silence.

“You have everything under control, dear?”

“I think so. Thanks for your concern, Asmodeus.”

Upon this, the golden-clad demon got up and turned to limp, aided by his cane, toward the chamber door. Sara, however, called after him, “Asmodeus! Just one more thing…”

The demon moaned, stopping in his tracks. “Don’t draw this out, Sara, I beg you. Goodbyes tear me up, and do you even imagine how much trouble a demon can get in for showing sentiment?”

“Did you really… did you indeed kill all those men?”

He cast a grin back over his shoulder. “Does it matter to you?” he asked pointedly.

Sara rolled her eyes. “Sure it does. Would I ask if it didn’t?”

He seemed to ponder, to consider this thing and the next, but then sighed again and slumped a bit. “Not a one,” he admitted, “I merely… sent them away with a stern talking to. Far enough away that they’ll never bother you again. I’m a big sap.”

“Somewhere pleasant?” Sara asked sardonically.

Asmodeus’ smile broadened into a smirk. “You’re evil, Sara. Much eviller than me.”

“Doesn’t seem like a big feat to achieve, after what you just said.”

“That does it! I’ll go away now, my dear. Enjoy your new husband while you can.”


	6. Chapter 6

As Tobias finally entered the room - slowly, coyly – Sara had just so managed to put a smile back on her face. The sadness over Asmodeus' leaving had only reached her tear glands after the demon had let the chamber door fall close behind him.

 _Sweet boy_ , she thought, and it soothed her a bit.

Tobias smiled back at her, a little forced, and instead of snuggling into bed with her, he pulled a chair close – that same chair Asmodeus had sat in just an hour or so before. He stared at his hands for a moment or two in silence and helplessness before he addressed his wife, showing a smile that very visibly grappled for her understanding and assistance. “This is awkward,” he said.

Sara smiled wanly, crossing her arms. “Tell me about it.”

Silence set in. Sara looked Tobias up and down and tried to find a shred of malice, of something malevolent about him, the littlest sign he had any intention of taking advantage of her – but she turned up empty. Tobias seemed lost and clueless, his whole expression and posture seemed to seek for Sara’s support and approval, and that endeared him to his newlywed wife even more.

“Now come,” she finally said, making room for her spouse, “come to bed, we should…”

“I don’t necessarily have to,” Tobias ventured, turning beet red as Sara rolled her head around again to look at him inquiringly, “I mean if you’re uncomfortable with it, I don’t necessarily need to sleep in that same bed with you.”

“You will have to,” she said evenly, “my parents will not believe for a second we’re rightfully wedded unless you do, and I’ll never hear the end of it.”

That seemed to make sense to Tobias, as evidenced by him nodding curtly and rising to disrobe – but then something seemed to occur to him, and he asked Sara to stay put for a second.

“What are you doing?” she asked, following him with her glance as he bustled over to the fireplace.

“Nothing much,” he evaded while doing Hell-might-know what at the cinders, “just arranging something. Good… looks fine to me.” He took a step back from the fireplace. “We should be all good and safe now.”

Sara watched with a pulled-up eyebrow as her husband returned, shrugged out of his clothes and finally slipped under covers beside her. He was careful to not even brush her, which was, on the one hand, kind and courteous, but on the other hand also made Sara wonder. Just a bit. “Need I know what that just was?” she asked, nodding toward the fireplace, but Tobias merely shook his head.

“All will be fine,” he said. “That is all I can tell you.”

Sara looked at him scathingly, but decided to let it go and sank down into her pillow. It felt odd, to lie there and look at a man’s body next to her, to care even a bit, to know he would be in the same place when she woke up tomorrow…

Still, one question bore asking, and it was not, ‘Why are my bedchambers starting to smell like a seafood barbecue pit?’ This was also a question that had its right to be asked, but, very well, it wasn’t the chief concern on Sara’s mind now.

“Don’t you want to… you know.” She gulped, and Tobias glanced at her timidly. “Lay with me?”

There. It was out.

Tobias seemed honest-to-god lost as he answered, “Gosh, Sara, I don’t know. Truly, I don’t. Do you want to?”

Sara bit her lower lip before she shook her head. She couldn’t quite describe the feeling in the pit of her stomach when she considered it – but it wasn't something that she knew, therefore not something that she trusted.

“Then we…” Tobias started, but he was interrupted by a shadow building, looming over them, a sensation as of a set of claws stretching for him – even Sara tore her head around in shock – and both of them shot up out of their resting positions. Before they managed gathering their senses to say something, though, an earth-shattering groan was to be heard.

“That smell!” something intoned that sounded like Asmodeus if he had a thick piece of cloth in front of his mouth, “That… since when do you roast fish with that kind of marinade? That poor animal! It had to die and you treat its flesh like…”

Then, a reddish swirl went through the air, driving the shadow away, bellowing, “Out – out, malicious spirit!”

Then, the chamber was quiet and empty again, though still possessed of the stench of burnt fish. Tobias and Sara stared at each other, and as their astonishment and shock dissolved into amusement, they settled into bed once more and shared the connecting sensation of communal laughter. Sara’s heart felt easier, lighter, less pressured – she was able to brush Tobias’ arm lightly and grasp his wrist, which he let happen without any misgivings.

“Then we won’t,” Tobias took up the thread from before they’d been interrupted. He sounded calm – maybe even a bit relieved? “Heavens, Sara, we have all the time in the world, and even if we decide we are, or it is not for us…”

“Thank you,” she interrupted him.

“No need,” Tobias stammered.

“No, really. Thank you. None of the other men even considered asking my opinion in the matter.”

“Then they were bastards.”

Sara chuckled. She might be damned, but this – this seemed like she really had a chance of making it work, for once. Asmodeus would like that one – or at least approve of him. Sara didn’t know why that mattered to her. “Well put, Tobias.”

“I think we should sleep now. It was… it was a long day for me.”

“For me, too. Sleep’s probably a good idea.”

“All under control?”

“Firmly.”

\-------------------------------------------------

All was fine now.

Sara was free, and Tobias had survived that first night in the marital bed, yawning and stretching at being woken by his new and shiny parents-in-law and rascally enjoying the sight of Edna dropping the candle she had carried at the sight of her pristine, unscathed and very much breathing son-in-law.

After the couple had caught up with themselves and Tobias’ amazing not-succumbing-to-demons-power, they had practically dragged him and his wife, muttering in her disturbed sleep, out of bed and insisted upon throwing a two-week-long wedding party for them.

Who was Tobias to refuse this?

Out of bed, festively dressed, bejewelled and beaming all over her face, Sara looked twice – ah, twenty times the woman she had initially seemed. Tobias caught himself, while she eagerly chatted with everybody or swirled in energetic dances with cousins, aunts and friends, in the thought that he could fully understand why Asmodeus had taken such an intense liking to her. Hers was an energy and a liveliness that was utterly hard to resist, and coupling this with her brains and self-assurance, he had no doubt that with her by his side, they would have no way but to prosper and thrive.

He himself rather kept at the fringes – he hardly knew anyone here, related by blood as they might be, and while most people were kind and respectful to him, they were more interested in the newlywed bride, a person from the middle of their community, after all. Even his parents-in-law had soon left to make conversation with or cater to the needs of their guests, and Asarja proved himself to be as enthusiastic and awkward a dancer as he was a proficient healer and tender to children, which left Tobias himself strolling by himself around the edges of the property, now and then exchanging fleeting glances with his spouse.

“Congratulations to your marriage, my boy.”

Tobias jumped violently as the suave voice reached his ear from beside. He didn’t need to turn around to recognize the speaker – the low, kind of sinister voice was clear enough, as was the lingering feeling of dread that Tobias had never been able to shake in his proximity – and he instinctively crouched a bit upon himself. Not much, though. He didn’t want that fiendish creature to think he was afraid.

Though, shouldn’t he be? That very same spirit had very nearly killed him just last night…

“I thought Asarja had…” he started, but Asmodeus simply tutted, easily keeping pace with the human. His cane tapped calmly on the dusty ground, and he seemed to perpetually chew on dates or figs or some other small fruit that appeared to come from some fold or pocket in his extravagant coat.

“Driven me out, yes, by all means, he definitely has,” the demon muttered, scratching his forehead between his horns, “I am definitely and utterly driven out, you rest easy about this, my boy. I just came back one last time to check everything had gone over fine. After that, I will be a presence never to be seen or heard of again, that is, unless she happens to call out for me. There is much tempting and many evil wiles I have to get to in Egypt… I was dawdling much too long with dear Sara as is.”

Tobias, following Asmodeus’ glance, found his bride who, laughing and cheering, was caught in a circular dance with the extended family. The brightly coloured bridely attire swished behind her, her mouth was open for laughing as well as gasping for breath, and her feet kicked up dust in her wake. Her left hand clasped Asarja’s, her right one a boy’s who looked no older than seven.

“It seems there is nothing wrong at the moment.”

Tobias didn’t think he needed to grace that with an answer. So he didn’t.

“Just so we are perfectly clear on one point, my boy.” Asmodeus’ voice dropped a few tones, and Tobias finally brought himself to turn around and look him in the eye. _His face isn’t cut out for violence or threats_ , he thought to himself while he studied Asmodeus’ countenance. _It is too full and soft, too light. The horns help, but not much. The eyes are a bit unsettling, but that’s_ …

What his face lacked in terrifyingness, Sara’s accomplice made good on with his voice. It sounded as two knives scraping against each other. “You ever think to yourself, _oh, a little slap won’t hurt_ , or _I’ll lock her in the kitchen_ , or _I’ll make her sleep out in the barn with the goats where she belongs_ … You ever yell or as much as twitch your fist at her… I ever hear her pray for release from you, I, my boy, will come and find you, and you will wish you were born without fingers so I could not rip them off and make you swallow them like the dirty promises you’ve broken. I will find the deepest pit and throw you into it and seal it over you, because violence against a spouse, my boy, is something I never have, and never will stand for.”

Asmodeus’ smile was a little forced, but toothy enough to bring across the threat. Tobias laboriously kept the shiver in check that wanted to grasp hold of him – he understood that this was his time to show he understood the demon meant business, and to reply in the like.

“Do we have an accord?” Asmodeus asked, deceptively honey sweet.

“Yes,” Tobias answered. His voice rang hollow and strangled in his own ears, but he brought the word out, he had overcome his fear, and that was what counted.

With a few blinks of his eyes and a relaxation of his mouth’s corners, the severity melted off the demon’s face, and he looked composed, genial, downright jovial. “Fantastic,” he said, popping another piece of fruit into his mouth, “then I believe I may leave in good conscience. For now.”

“For now,” Tobias agreed, feeling a little sheepish.

For a moment or two, the human boy and the demon skirted the wedding reception, walking in silence. Tobias’ thoughts were restless – what if anyone noticed him? Asmodeus, he meant, he himself had every right to be here after all. What if the caused a ruckus?

And Asarja…

Or, maybe he was worrying too much, and there wasn’t much wrong with having the demon around. Sara surely hadn’t seemed to mind him; her words of defence of her companion were still fresh and vivid in Tobias’ memory. And he was so concerned about her well-being… He had proven himself rather agreeable – almost upstanding in some ways, much as Tobias felt odd for admitting it – and maybe he was not wicked through and through…?

“Would you like to…” he began, clearing his throat as he noticed the demon glancing down at him with an inquiringly lifted brow, “… you know… join us? In the feasting and dancing? After all, Sara apparently liked and trus…”

“Oh no, my boy.” The golden one sounded a little wistful, but ultimately adverse. He also didn’t speak to Tobias directly – his glance scanned the crowd, for nothing in particular, it seemed. His cane tapping sped up, a little irately. “Oh no. Demons don’t dance. What with all the happiness and joy and all that… it would be an odd world in which demons went around frolicking and having fun, much less being… liked or trusted or some such. You must mean the angels, you do. Frivolous things, they.”

“Frivolous?” Tobias thought his ears deceived him. He had taken over his father’s faith, yes, was not half as staunch in it as the old man, but still he could not imagine angels being anything like ‘frivolous.’

“The angels I know about are not…”

“And there’s where we have the problem,” the demon muttered, but wouldn’t elaborate on what he meant any further. Ultimately, Tobias looked around, seeking for help, but as he turned toward the demon again, making another attempt to bring him to join the festivities, he had vanished into thin air.

Tobias took some time to fully work through what had just happened – the severe words of warning the demon had spoken, his assertions that demons were strict and solemn and angels were playful and merry and overjoyed – but finally, he squared his shoulders, took a deep breath and ventured closer to the nucleus of the party, where Sara momentarily danced with two small girls, one at each hand. Asarja stood aside, clapping his hands in time to the beat, and the travelling companions shared a smile while Tobias went to his side and followed suit.

It was fine.


	7. Chapter 7

It was a warm, sunny afternoon as Archangel Raphael re-joined the demon in the place he had ostensibly chased him away to, and ostensibly chained him. This was what he had reported upstairs, in colourful detail too, and had gotten to relish the flat surprise in Michael’s and the begrudging appreciation in Gabriel’s face – sometimes he thought his elder siblings had indeed _wanted_ him to fail this mission, at least on some level. Well, sucked for them.

He had to force down a chuckle at this irreverent thought.

In all actuality, Asmodeus lounged, unbound and quite serene, it seemed, in a wooden chair, leant back, his stiff leg relaxed, cradling a stoneware jug upon his belly, possibly drowsing, fluffy hair shimmering in the sun, curved horns likewise. His cane leant on the distant side of the chair. They were on a sandy embankment next to a broad, mud-green river; there was human activity on the other side, but neither of the supernaturals paid much mind. Raphael, though proud of his victory, was still a tad worried that they might be found out after all, but for the moment, it seemed like Gabriel as well as Beelzebub, whom Asmodeus reported to, were sufficiently placated – or simply didn’t care enough to follow up on this.

And after all, it was a tiny mission. Insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

Asmodeus slightly cocked his head as he felt the Archangel approaching. Then, he sipped whatever was in his jug this time before asking, audibly bewildered, “Out, out, malicious spirit?”

Raphael pulled a face, a little hurt and indignant. “Do you mean to imply that’s not what you are?”

The demon lifted a brow.

“I was improvising,” the Archangel finally admitted, after a short run of steadfastly trying to avoid saying anything, let alone looking at somebody. “I don’t have much experience with casting out your type, and I didn’t know what would have been appropriate to say.”

“And how do you imagine a demon to stay focused with that sort of thing thrown at us? I was tempted to just burst out laughing then and there. Heaven, I could hear the both of them cackling before…”

Raphael tutted. “I don’t think I need that sort of information,” he stopped Asmodeus, who responded with a mere smirk.

The demon gracefully let the subject go, snapping his fingers in turning away; a set of chair and jug identical to his own manifested. “Have a seat, lord angel. Sample the wine and relax.”

“I believe, faced with these choices, I’d prefer to stand,” the Healer snapped in reflex. “But thank you dearly for your… kind offer.”

The expression on the demon’s face spoke volumes, but all he said was, “Suit yourself, your Holiness.”

Silence set in.

Raphael intertwined his hands in front of his midriff.

Asmodeus reclined in his seat, perpetually sipping his drink, watching as a handful of humans climbed up and down a wooden slope, shouting, cracking whips, pulling rectangular blocks of stone.

“Any idea what the mortals are up to?” Raphael asked, trying to push back or mask his mounting curiosity pertaining the contents of the demon’s drinking vessel.

Asmodeus merely shrugged. “Stacking stones for all I can tell,” he mumbled, “not my sort of pastime, and I cannot really fathom what they’d do this for, but to each their own.”

The periods of silence prolonged. It was Raphael who broke that one, “Sara is fine, by the way. Was fine as I left her and Tobias, just so you know, after getting his money, healing his father’s blindness and revealing myself as… well, myself. The usual. I thought I should tell you.”

Asmodeus grunted.

Raphael finally took his seat, more as a means of getting to eye-level with Asmodeus than anything else. Looking down on him irked him due to a reason he could not exactly name. “Though I have to ask,” the Archangel blurted out and turned on his chair toward the demon, who rolled his eyes in exasperation, “now that we’re already speaking of Sara. What… I may live to regret asking, but what did you even do to Sara’s suitors?”

“I shouldn’t unfold that sort of vista in front of your eyes, lord angel,” Asmodeus grumbled without much of a pause, staring at the blazing blue horizon, “it might just break your delicate little mind.”

“Aw, come on!” Raphael prodded, sounding more adventurous than scared or even impressed, “Come on, oh my king Asmodeus, you can tell me! Sara was there, and she’s only a human, and she was mostly fine. Besides, I am a doctor – I’ve seen my fair share of bloodspills and open abdomens. I won’t simply faint if you talk of a slit throat or spilt blood.”

“No.” The demon sounded incensed. “I don't want to have a legion of you fowl on my back, screaming bloody murder for breaking Archangel Raphael. And I tell you, you won’t be able to stomach it. You angels are… a light-hearted, weak-minded brood.”

There was another period of silence; Raphael felt his grin get broader and broader as he contemplated King Asmodeus’ profile and listened to his huffed breathing. “You didn't harm a hair on their heads, did you?” he asked smirking.

Asmodeus scoffed and balled a fist. “The insolence!” he thundered.

“Then tell me! C’mon, spit it out. Do your worst. Revel a bit in the memories of gore and broken bones and spilt blood and brains!”

“Of course I mangled them! Even their mothers wouldn't recognize what little I’ve left of them!”

“Specifics! Give me details!”

“Of one, I tore off the arms and the legs and sewed them back on… backwards!”

“What, pointing to his back?”

“No, the arms where the legs would go and vice versa.”

Raphael gave a contented hum. “I see. What else?”

“Of one, I… I made him bite off his own fingers and then pulled every single tooth! He gargled blood all while he was calling for help that never came.”

“Good, good…” Raphael followed acutely how Asmodeus’ diction slowed and weakened, how he didn’t even glance at his interlocutor while he told his stories, and how he actually paled a bit around the nose.

“Of one… of one, I…”

“Stop now.” Raphael sounded kind and congenial and amiable, and he was surprised that the demon looked a bit like a cat someone had kicked as he turned his head to his angelic interlocutor. “Stop, please, I’m actually begging you. With how you look and act… you don’t truly expect me to believe you killed even a chicken? Let alone seven men!”

“You must be delirious,” the demon snapped, wetting his trembling lips, but still sounded half-hearted and wishy-washy. “I am a king of Hell. No-one gets on my, or my allies’, bad side and lives.”

Raphael, still a wan smile in the corner of his mouth, decided to let it go. He understood that the aversion to violence Asmodeus so visibly displayed could work to his disadvantage down in Hell, and since he had now confirmed for himself that the demon was about half as bad as he portrayed himself, he thought he could work with him. He seemed to be big in the craving of luxuries and sensory pleasures, and that was wicked, too, but Raphael found it easier to shrug that off and concentrate on the positive character traits he saw in the demon.

Honourability.

Congeniality.

Care for those around him.

Faithfulness.

Trueness to his word.

The Archangel combed his long, ginger hair back and stared at the horizon for a moment or two before he spoke up again, slower this time, less prodding, with much less energy and urgency behind his words. He sounded almost contemplative. “What about your outlook, now? What will you do?”

The demon shrugged, apparently having calmed down himself within the few breaths of silence his intelocutor had granted him. “Since I’m officially chained and incapacitated, I reckon I’ll get a pass for not acquiring too many temptations to my name in the years to come. I guess I’ll take an extended vacation… sample the cuisine and brewery of other places. I hear the Chinese do remarkable things to rice plants… or the Scandinavians to honey.”

“Could that not turn out… bad?” Raphael asked, warily. “I mean, if Hell sends someone to save you and there’s no-one to be…”

Roaring laughter interrupted not only the angel’s turn, but also his train of thought. He stared at the amused demon in utter bewilderment, asking himself what he might have said that was so funny, but also couldn’t deny the happy sparks that it gave him to make a grim character as that one laugh.

“I’ll leave it to you to figure out what the goofy part of that was,” Asmodeus grinned, combing through his hair and brushing one of his horns with his palm, “You’re one of a kind, you know that, lord angel? Could almost say I like you.”

“Why not say it outright?” Raphael caught himself in shooting back.

“Oh, oh. We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, will we, lord angel?” Asmodeus didn’t sound evil, reproachful, or bitter – he sounded almost playful. Raphael felt a flash of affection, noted that this was unusual, unheard-of, most probably not something that would be accepted upstairs, but had the good grace to let it be what it was. “Now that would be utterly impossible, seeing as you are an angel, and I am a demon. Quite a high-ranking one at that. I have a reputation to defend. The likes of me don’t _like_ the likes of you.”

The likes of… Raphael sensed a loophole there.

But were he willing to exploit it?

Finally, he grasped the jug at his feet, lifted it and smelled the thick, lazily sloshing contents. It didn’t smell half bad, so he turned to Asmodeus, “The humans say something before they drink together, what was it again?”

Asmodeus grinned as he held his cup out to the Archangel, “Cheers, lord angel.”

Raphael reciprocated as he said, “Cheers, Asmodeus.”

They drank.


End file.
